Orlikowski-slides

Wanda J. Orlikowski
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
& London School of Economics
Sociomateriality:
A Practice Lens on Technology at
Work
ICTs in the Contemporary World Seminar
ICTs in the Contemporary World Seminar
June 2007

Outline
• Difficulties studying technology
• Exploring an alternative approach
• Empirical examples
• Implications for research research

Difficulties Studying Technology
1. Tend to treat technology as a specific
occasion/circumstance in
organizations
– design and diffusion of technological
artifacts
– adoption and appropriation of
technological artifacts

By treating technology as a
special case, we lose sight of
how materiality is integral to
all work

All work in organizations is always
already constituted by materiality:
bodies, clothes, food, drink, pens,
paper, books, folders, documents,
boards, boxes, computers, phones,
utensils, cables, lights, buildings,
rooms, furniture, networks,
infrastructure, ...

“Language Language matters. Discourse
matters. Culture matters. But there
is an important sense in which the
only thing that does not seem to
matter anymore is matter.” matter.
(Barad Barad 2003)

Difficulties Studying Technology
2. Tend to operate out of an ontology of
separate and independent entities
– distinguish technology and people
– focus on their interaction
technology people

Techno-Centered Views
technology people
– impacts of technology
– design of technology

Human-Centered Views
technology people
– uses of technology
– participative design

By separating and privileging
the technology and/or the
people, we lose sight of their
mutual constitution

To distinguish a priori “material material” and “social social” ties
before linking them together again makes about as
much sense as to account for the dynamic of a
battle by imagining, first, a group of soldiers and
officers stark naked; second, a heap of
paraphernalia – tanks, paperwork, uniforms – and
then claim that “of of course there exists some
(dialectical) relation between the two.” two.
No! one should retort, there exists no relation
whatsoever between the material and the social
world, because it is the division that is first of all a
complete artefact. To abandon the division is not to
“relate relate” the heap of naked soldiers with the heap of
material stuff, it is to rethink the whole assemblage
from top to bottom and from beginning to end.
(Latour 2004)

Example 1:
Information Search

Google Search Engine

Structure
Agency
Technologies-in-Practice
(rules and resources instantiated in use
of technology)
Facilit
ies
e.g.,
hardware
software
Norms
e.g.,
protocols
etiquette
Interpretive
Schemes
e.g.,
assumptions
knowledge
Ongoing, Situated Use of Technology
Other structure
enacted in the
use of technolog

Studying Technology at Work
• Take seriously the constitutive entangling of
the material and social in all work
• View everyday work practices as entailing:
– not the interaction of separate entities
– but sociomaterial intra-action intra action (Barad Barad, , 2003)
sociomateriality

Sociomateriality
• Human and material agencies are
reciprocally and temporally constituted
(Pickering, 1995)
• Agencies are not attributes but ongoing
reconfigurings of the world
(Barad, 2003)
• Boundaries and performances are
contingently enacted, rather than
available naturally or presumed a priori
(Suchman, 2007)

Example 2:
Communication
[in collaboration with Melissa Mazmanian and JoAnne
Yates, and supported by NSF grant #IIS-0085725]

My favorite gadget is my
BlackBerry. It saves me time and
makes me more responsive. Because
it's small enough to always be with
me, I can fill in free moments of
time where I would otherwise just be
standing around.
(Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO Amazon)

We refer to them as CrackBerrys
because they’re they re completely addictive,
and you can’t can t imagine how you could
live without them, and in some sense
you can’t can t imagine how you live with
them.
(Frank, Partner)

Example 2: Plymouth
Small, prestigious private equity firm in US:
– operating since mid-1980s mid 1980s
– 33 employees (22 investment staff, 5 senior
support staff, 6 assistants)
– fast-paced, fast paced, autonomous, mobile work
involving extensive interactions
– espoused commitment to work/life balance
– all staff received BlackBerrys 4 years ago

Communication is constituted by the
performativity of the BlackBerrys
as this is enacted by humans in practice
• portability
• unobtrusiveness
• ubiquity
Example 2: Plymouth
carried everywhere
“silent mode” set
always on & checking

You know, I’m Im
always looking at it. Even
when I wake wake
up in the morning, I’ll ll take a
look at it, and ... then as I’m I m getting
ready, like having breakfast, I’ll Ill
sort of
keep looking at it, it,
just in case. case
(Jeff, Jr. Associate)

There are not many people here who
don’t don t check their BlackBerry every
seven or eight minutes. ... There
aren’t aren t many people you can email
that you don’t dont
hear back from right
away.
(Donna, Sr. Associate)

Because it’s so easy to check, (a) you
do it, and then, (b) once you see it,
it’s like “Oh, I’ve got to respond to
that.” ... You get touched and you
need to touch back.
(Greg, Partner)

Example 2: Plymouth
The enacted sociomateriality reconfigures
expectations and norms of work
– shifting individual choices about control,
interaction, and responsiveness
– creating shared assumptions of constant
availability and accountability
– increasing compulsion to respond

It has definitely changed my actions. I feel
more compelled to check the thing more
often ... I think you make something of a
commitment to your work colleagues when
you accept one of these things [BackBerry [ BackBerry], ],
which is — you’re youre
going to become more
responsive.
(Frank, Partner)

One of the things that I’ve Ive
noticed more
and more is that people will BlackBerry me
in the evening — you know, after 8:30pm.
I’m m pretty much settled in by then, and
people know that my BlackBerry sits next to
me, my cup of tea is there, my knitting is in
my lap, something’s something s on television, and I just
take take
care of business.
(Eleanor, Manager)

Once the audience that you interface
with all the time knows that you’re youre
a
crack junkie, they expect a quick
response. So if I don’t dont
respond to an
email within an hour, people start to
wonder “What What’s s wrong with Greg?” Greg? It’s Its
that bad.
(Greg, Partner)

One negative piece is — when you
choose to get away, how do you do
that? ... How do you tell people who
need to contact you that you’re youre
not
going to be on-line on line for a while? while?
That’s That s
the worst part of it. Once you’ve youve
created an expectation that you’re youre
always reachable, do you then always
have to be reachable? reachable
(Kurt, Partner)

Example 2: Plymouth
The enacted sociomateriality entails
unanticipated consequences
• addiction and withdrawal
• risk and dependence

You’re Youre
sort of constantly tied. Here’s Heres
an
example. I’ll I ll be working on a deal that
we’re were
in the throes of and working pretty
hard. And I’ll Ill
have my BlackBerry by my
bed, and my wife will wake up at 3 or 4am
in the morning and I’ll I ll be checking my
BlackBerry ... Yeah, it’s it s that sort of
addictive.
(Matt, Principal)

I think the worst is seeing him check it all
the time. Like, it really bugs me to see him
standing in the kitchen while the world is
buzzing around him, and he’s checking his
email. ... And the kids know. Mark is 18
months and he comes over to me yesterday
and he goes “DaDa, DaDa” and hands me
Chad’s Blackberry. Meanwhile, John [who is
5] knows what a Blackberry is. He’ll Hell
be
like, “Daddy, Daddy, do you need to check your
Blackberry?” Blackberry?
(Carol, Spouse)

Gergen’s Gergen absent presence:
“... ... the diverted or divided consciousness
invited by communication technology ...
One is physically present, but absorbed
by a technologically mediated world of
elsewhere.”
elsewhere.

Example 2: Plymouth
Sociomaterial entanglement of members’ members
communication with BlackBerrys enacts a
set of contradictory dynamics:
– control of/by communication
– extending/escalating engagement
– increasing flexibility/undermining
espoused values

Example 3:
News Production
[in collaboration with Matthew Jones, Kamal Munir, and Jochen
Runde, and supported by the Cambridge-MIT Institute (project #074)]

Example 3: News
Examining the production of print
and online news in different sites
within and across organizations

Example 3: News
Sociomaterial production of print and
online news entail different:
– temporal structures
– content, format, services
– audiences

If you work in the print industry you are
sitting there and it’s its
4pm and you know
that the button gets pressed at 7pm …
You say, “I’ve ve got 3 hours in which to work
on this … [so] I can now make 15 phone
calls in order to get the depth and context
that I need.”
need.

[With print] the whole thing will be honed,
and they’ll theyll
get towards a perfect product
at the end of the night. With [online], I
just came in and said “It It’s s a great story,
go live with it now.”
now.

During the day, from 5 or 6 am till
midnight … there isn’t isn t a minute that
a news story or an updated story
wouldn’t wouldn t be published.

We find that there are lots of people in
American merican who read us, and ... a
Guardian reader in Brighton probably has
more in common with the Guardian reader
who lives in Brooklyn or Berkeley ... than
they will with someone who reads the t e
Sun but lives 10 miles down the road.
The geographical boundaries of papers
have gone.

It is a bit of a shock, because you
suddenly have to question your story
selecting, your hierarchy, and whether
in fact something which w ich is a huge story
for the Guardian locally ... maybe has
no relevance for 50% of our audience.

Example 3: News
Sociomateriality
Sociomateriality
of print and online
news enact multiple realities: realities
– different temporal and spatial regimes
of production/consumption
– diversity of content and format
– dissimilar local/global audiences

Implications
Studying technology at work requires:
– moving beyond the dichotomies of
impacts/use
– engaging with the sociomateriality of
work practices as this is enacted
ongoingly, ongoingly,
contingently, and multiply

Sociomateriality in practice entails
reciprocally and temporally emergent
entanglements of:
– individual skills, choices, and identities
– institutional norms and expectations
– inscribed features and performances
– local and global infrastructures
Implications